Johannes Theodorus Toorop was born on the 20th December of 1858 in Purworejo on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies (nowaday: Indonesia). He spend his childhood in the Dutch East Indies and went to school in Batavia (Java). He was the third of five children in his family. Johannes left the Dutch Indies in favour of better education leaving his family behind. In 1869 he went to Leiden (Netherlands). Since 1874 he studied at the the HBS in Winterswijk (Netherlands) where he was taught by Schut who also inspired Mondriaan for drawing plaster models. Then from 1975 he was taught by H.J. Van der Weele in The Hague (Netherlands). From 1876 til 1978 he studied at the Polytechnical school in Delft (Netherlands). He was more interested in artistical art and therefore he went to the Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (Netherlands) followed by the Academie voor Schone Kunsten in Brussel (Belgium). When he lived in Brussel he really started to become an artist. He shared an atelier with William Degouve de Nuncques. By 1885 he was part of the Les XX art group founded by Octave Maus. He traveled to Paris with his friend Ensor and were inspired by pointillism from artists like Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. When traveling to London he was inspired by the impressionism from James McNeill Whistler.
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| Shipwreck - 1895 |
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| Portrait of Annie Hall - 1886 |
In 1886 he married Annie Hall and a year later they lived shortly in Amerongen (Netherlands) and by 1888 and 1889 the live in England but moved back to the Netherlands. He was starting to develop his own unique style called lineair idealism. It was a religious kind of art nouveau (aka jugendstill) as well as symbolism.
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| Delftsche Slaolie - 1894 |
In 1894 he created his first famous litograph for the NOF (nowadays Calvé) Delft salad oil. Through the popularity of this litograph art nouveau was also known as salad oil style. From 1899 til 1904 he lived in Katwijk aan Zee (Netherlands) where he made for example "De Zee(The Sea)".
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| De Zee - 1887 |
Since 1902 he designed tile panels for buildings like the Gesamtkunstwerk in Amsterdam (nowadays called the stock exchange of Berlage) designed by H.P. Berlage. The 3 panels at the main entrance of the Stock Exchange of Berlage were made by Toorop presenting the past, present and future. Also inside the building there are some tile panels with themes like female emancipation and upliftment of workers. What is rather strange for a building with a capitalist function.
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| 3 tile panels at the main entrance of the Beurs Berlage - 1902 |
